Iraq Attacks Kill 12, Wound More Than 50

04/19/2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A suicide car bomb outside an Iraqi army recruitment center and other attacks killed a dozen people Tuesday and wounded more than 50. Iraq’s parliament adjourned in protest after a legislator linked to a militant Shiite faction claimed he had been roughed up at a U.S. checkpoint.

The suicide bombing occurred in the Azamiyah section of the capital about 18 yards from the front gate of the recruitment center, killing at least six Iraqis, including two soldiers, and wounding 44, said police Col. Hussein Mutlaq.

In other violence targeting the military, insurgents opened fire on Iraqi soldiers in Khalidiyah, 75 miles west of Baghdad, killing four soldiers and wounding seven, police and hospital officials said.

Late Monday, gunmen ambushed a senior Defense Ministry adviser, Maj. Gen. Adnan al-Qaraghulli, killing him and his son as he drove home in Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said.

One of the main goals of U.S.-led forces in the 2-year-old war is to train Iraqi security forces to replace American soldiers, and insurgents often target centers where these forces are recruited and instructed.

Iraq’s National Assembly briefly delayed its session to protest the alleged mistreatment of a Shiite legislator by a soldier at a U.S. checkpoint outside the heavily fortified Green Zone, where parliament meets in central Baghdad.

In an emotional speech to the legislature, a sobbing Fattah al-Sheik, whose small party has been linked to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said the American soldier had kicked his car, mocked the legislature, handcuffed him and held him by the neck.

“What happened to me represents an insult to the whole National Assembly that was elected by the Iraqi people. This shows that the democracy we are enjoying is fake,” he said. “Through such incidents, the U.S. Army tries to show that it is the real controlling power in the country, not the new Iraqi government, and that it can impose its rules on every Iraqi.”

Before the session resumed, lawmaker Salam al-Maliki read a statement from the assembly to reporters, demanding an apology from the U.S. Embassy and the prosecution of the U.S. soldier who allegedly had mistreated al-Sheik.

Parliament speaker Hajim al-Hassani said: “We reject any sign of disrespect directed at lawmakers. The National Assembly members ... should be treated in an appropriate way.”

U.S. forces said they were investigating.

It was the third day running that legislators were sidetracked from the business of setting up a new government and constitution, starting with agreeing rules and procedures for their sessions.

Much of their time was taken up by reports that up to 100 Shiite residents had been taken hostage by Sunni militants in Madain, a town south of the capital in Iraq’s “Triangle of Death. The reports raised fears of a sectarian crisis in Iraq.

Hundreds of Iraqi security forces moved into the town at dawn Monday, finding weapons, car bombs and a suspected insurgent training facility - but no hostages.

“The city is now under full control,” interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s office said Monday. He said 10 suspected insurgents were arrested.

Iraqi police and special forces began scaling back their search Tuesday. Shops began to reopen in the agricultural town of about 1,000 families, far fewer security forces were seen on patrol, and the ones who had been guarding rooftops were removed. However, Madain remained surrounded by Iraqi forces, who searched all vehicles leaving or entering it.

The U.S. military, which has praised Iraqi security forces for leading the operation, continued to stand by in case they were needed.

Madain, evenly divided between Shiites and Sunnis, is located at the northern tip of a region considered a stronghold of the militant Sunni insurgency.

Sunni Arabs make up 15 percent to 20 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people, but many of them boycotted Iraq’s national election in January or stayed away because of fears the polls would be attacked. Efforts are under way to make sure they are part of a new Cabinet being negotiated in a country with a Shiite majority and a significant Kurd minority.

However, violence persisted Tuesday.

In the capital, masked men armed with machine guns in two cars shot and killed Professor Fuad Ibrahim Mohamed Al-Bayati as he left his home for work at the University of Baghdad, police said.

In two separate attacks involving roadside bombs, one Iraqi civilian died in the Iskandariyah area about 30 miles south of Baghdad, and three were wounded in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of the capital, in an attack that missed a U.S. military convoy.

At Camp Bucca, the United State’s largest detention facility in Iraq, a 51-year-old male inmate who has been imprisoned since May 2004, died Tuesday of what appeared to be natural causes, the U.S. military said.